What do you think?
Rate this book
Found in Brooklyn
Roma's photographs pay homage to the diverse, expansive, and truly unique place that is Brooklyn. Brooklyn is often thought of as a world of its own. For the photographer Thomas Roma, Brooklyn is the place of his boyhood, a place of lush gardens and expanses of white cement, of the merging of old country and new world. In these photographs, made over a period of twenty years, Roma finds images of the neighborhoods that shaped him.
Roma is a rare photographer who, without resorting to technical gimmicks, offers us pure photography. He looks directly into the mundane and from it creates poetry, mystery, and surprise. An old man sits in his undershirt surrounded by the flowering beauty he has created. A boy lies on an overpass, dreaming, as cars rush beneath him. Roma's pictures take us through streets and passages, abandoned lots and backyards, to give us glimpses of Brooklyn that are at turns amusing, forlorn, stunning, and surreal.
Roma is a rare photographer who, without resorting to technical gimmicks, offers us pure photography. He looks directly into the mundane and from it creates poetry, mystery, and surprise. An old man sits in his undershirt surrounded by the flowering beauty he has created. A boy lies on an overpass, dreaming, as cars rush beneath him. Roma's pictures take us through streets and passages, abandoned lots and backyards, to give us glimpses of Brooklyn that are at turns amusing, forlorn, stunning, and surreal.
- GenresNew YorkPhotography
93 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1996
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 16, 2017
As usual, Thomas Roma has put together a book of knock-out photos of surprising, thought-provoking Brooklyn scenes. This is a book of outdoor photographs of Brooklyn streets, backyards, empty lots, etc., from 1974-1990. Mostly, the photos are from the 1980s - and since I was living in Brooklyn, my home borough, during these years, in probably similar neighborhoods, the book for me is like a look back in time, to a place I left a while ago.
The photographs as usual are excellent - from the standpoint of composition and contrast, and technical skill as well as printing (how nostalgic that sounds now in the era of digital photography). I remember Tri-X film, D76 developing agent, and Ilford paper. I remember this very well, because back in the day my family in Brooklyn were all into photography, including developing and printing. It was a mania, I would say, which unfortunately, for me at least, receded into a former hobby or pastime as the demands of grownup life crowded out creative pursuits that had once interested me, or absorbed my spare time. I suppose this must happen to many people once they grow up .. or think they are entering grown up life. Paradoxically, I was essentially through with photography as an avocation by the time Roma was starting out in it - age 17. Interestingly, Roma made a career out of photography - although he went to work at 17 and had scant formal training in photography, he kept at it and eventually became a successful photographer including winning teaching appointments at various prestigious universities. Not too shabby for a kid from Brooklyn - and it just goes to show you that sometimes, long years in school do not translate into a life-long career whereas a satisfying life-long career can sometimes simply materialize out of an avocation, if one sticks with it long enough.
I really loved the photographs in this book because they examine the seamier, perhaps more mysterious side of the Brooklyn streetscape (what I presume is mostly the S Brooklyn streetscape) - they are filled with ambiguity and open to many different interpretations. Shapeless junk or debris in an empty lot - what was it originally, how had it ended up there, why is the lot empty, what about the walls of the adjoining houses - which still may retain some traces of the missing building that once occupied the empty lot. Or is it an empty lot at all - is it rather a very messy, decidedly un-gentrified yard, one that someone can't be bothered to prettify with a nice lawn and plantings? The idea of debris of all sorts - abandoned fixtures, and all sorts of junk - of course it's fascinating the way all old junk is fascinating. Many times, the photographs contrast zones of disorder - a fence slightly askew, an empty lot or yard, with (dull?) orderly zones of neat, yet perhaps boring row houses. It's clear that the "star" of these photos is the contrast and of course the devastated lot.
The yards with scrawny patches of crab grass and various random/haphazard backyard furnishings - aluminum chairs, bbqs, picnic tables, mass produced concrete lawn sculptures, half-dead potted plants, and so forth - are in a way wonderful expressions of the home-owners idiosyncratic individuality, but the photographs aren't simply praising independence or "wildness" - they are also every time reminding the viewer that things are not always what they seem. The tiny backyard patches of earth, their messiness, despite the messiness aren't they really an oasis for a family? Families trying to keep the yard up as best they can, but the yard is overrun with evidence of family life - many times there are clotheslines with clothes hanging in the small yards, despite the yards also having to double as outdoor dining areas. Many of the assemblages of either found/discarded items that have somehow found their way into yards, aren't they forms of quixotic self-expression similar to the famous ready-made art works of the Dadaists? Or are they simply evidence of materialistic entropy - of belongings overflowing into yards and becoming randomly associated, not a deliberate arrangement of objects.
An example of deliberate street scape art though, is definitely in evidence in the photograph of the entrance way to a basement apartment, whose occupant has decorated with numerous religious symbols/slogans. Incongruously, a discarded sofa occupies much of the foreground of the photograph, the even/exact/symmetrical pattern of its brocade upholstery contrasting with the folksy painted religious symbols surrounding it.
Another photograph of a home that is carefully completely sheathed in asphalt shingles/siding - seemingly without one shingle out of place - contains a large tree branch broken off a sidewalk tree and falling into the yard of the immaculate/orderly house - disorder impinging on order, including the decorative iron fence surrounding the house bent out of shape by the impact of the falling branch. It seems as if the fence has been there a long time - is the message the City has neglected block after block, lot after lot - and that's why there is so much disorder, garbage on the streets, and so forth?
Another photo is composed of a casually though smartly dressed girl (in shorts and top) in front of a yard which is surrounded by a 7 or 8 foot barbed wire topped cyclone fence. Graffiti covers the subway entrance (stairs to elevated train - possibly the Sea Beach line) and the sense is of "islands" of order (the girl and the store front she is standing next to, which also seems orderly) contrasting with disorder - which is why the homeowner felt he had to guard his home with barbed wire topped fence.
A couple of other photographs shows diligent homeowners tending their fig trees - like back in the Mediterranean "old country" - by carefully wrapping them up in blankets for the winter, or pruning them. The social order of the old world towns is at least partially invoked in the ritual of taking care of these precious trees, which are usually in tended, even if tiny, yards. Are the trees also metaphors for the orderly home-owners, wrapping themselves in tradition perhaps, as insulation against the social change and upheaval sweeping Brooklyn and the City beyond? The scene is even more full of pathos when the trees are set against the elevated tracks which daily bring commuters from the traditional communities to the chaos of Manhattan, and then back to a much slower rhythm of life in Brooklyn each evening. The subway or elevated that many need to live (jobs in the City - although of course not everyone works in the City, many work in the outer boroughs) is exactly what is what is undermining or devastating their traditional way of life, where it may have been enough to tend a fig tree, or play bocce, or enjoy a bbq dinner in a tiny hard-scrabble backyard. I'm not going to romanticize S. Brooklyn. I know the area in general well - although I grew up in another area (Midwood) it was close enough to Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Cropsey Avenue and so forth. The contradictions in the 80s in Brooklyn were what drove me out of the borough - although I understand why some people may cling to tradition. The areas had become enclaves and there were several frightening instances of crimes based on race which I remember well - territoriality had set in. I disliked this and never regretted leaving Brooklyn - although it's changed so much since then. Of course I wonder about Brooklyn and what it might be like to live there again (if I could ever find an apartment I could afford, which is unlikely, however). When I left Brooklyn, rents were cheap since there was so much crime and disorder, and fear was omnipresent. I also had had enough of broken down trains regularly leading to ridiculously long commutes home - I remember having to pack extensive range of snacks & reading material in my knapsack because of the possibility I would be stuck on train after train. That and tapes for my walkman - because of how long the commutes would take. The Manhattan bridge was deteriorating and I disliked the long slow portion of the subway ride over the bridge, which was visibly rusting and swaying. The bridge has since been rehabbed, but I ended up avoiding taking trains that traversed the bridge to avoid the ride - instead I would switch to the IRT and have to go through Lower Manhattan, although I could have had a more direct and shorter (distance-wise but not time-wise since the train would always only inch over the bridge) ride had I taken the train over the bridge. The disorder in the streets, the decay of the infrastructure - is it any wonder really that people might retreat into their idiosyncratic backyard "sanctums?"
The photographs in the book seem to highlight the contrast between order and disorder - which was especially evident in those days to anyone walking on any street. Orderly, well-taken care of houses covered in siding might sit next to a ragged front yard planted with bizarre looking plants or trees, disorder next to order.
A photograph of three small boys solemnly burning a piece of paper or cardboard on the sidewalk, with a tire set upon a rim as a sort of monument, with garbage and graffiti everywhere - are these kids supposed to symbolize the (orderly) future possibly one day burying the (disorderly) past, with the tire symbolizing the unending cycle of the passage of time?
Next, there's a photo of a kid who is evidently drunk after quaffing half of a 40 oz bottle of Olde English 800 malt liquor, having fallen asleep on an overpass over what appears to be the Prospect Expressway or perhaps an on ramp to the Belt, with his dog, a small black long-haired possibly a mutt, on a leash still attached to the prone unconscious adolescent's hand, possibly guarding the snoozing inebriated kid. Next, a photo of a couple of youths climbing the sort of random trees or giant weeds that always seemed to sprout around highways in Brooklyn - looking out at highway traffic below - were they pretending to be in the jungle, by venturing into one of the leftover patches of greenery around a highway?
It is interesting to try to decode the garbage in the street in these pictures - remnants of an earlier era, prior to Starbucks, cell phones, and so many other things we take for granted today. Almost like a entree into an urban archaeology of a rather distant era. Does anybody remember metal garbage cans - the era of metal garbage cans with their lids chained to them, which were not hidden in enclosures, the era before the plastic garbage cans? The era before recycling? Who can remember the clanging of metal garbage cans the days the garbage truck would come around to collect the garbage? That era ended long ago. Does anyone remember the era prior to putting garbage in large plastic garbage bags - the era when people who put trash into paper grocery bags, which would sometimes fall apart from the moisture of coffee grounds or other food waste? I remember those days- of my mother screaming to whoever had to bring the garbage out to the garbage can to hold the bag from beneath or put a piece of newspaper under it while bringing it out to the street. Sometimes the bag would break - that was like a nightmare since immaculateness was all for her (& her housewife friends, who probably vied with each other as to who kept a neater, cleaner, more plastic-wrapped home).
Another photograph features 4 kids hanging out near a car - evidently owned by one of them (or more likely the kid's dad's car since it's quite a boat, possibly a Caddy) - one of the teen couples draped over the car in a casual embrace of legs, the other hanging out seemingly listlessly on nearby garbage cans, with a boombox tightly held by the girl turned toward the girl. Just another afternoon hanging out in Brooklyn - who knows what the next phase of the afternoon would bring? Again, the sidewalk is neglected, is that supposed to be a commentary on the lounging kids? Who knows? Behind the kids, across the street, one the left, a house under renovation, alongside a monotonous row of garages with dark side-opening doors (not the more modern overhead doors) - every surface has graffiti, to lesser or greater extents. Evidence of neglect or owners who have just given up on trying to keep their property free of graffiti? The car the kids have is immaculate - once again, order vs. disorder. But are the lives of the kids spiraling into a kind of hopelessness or has the torpor of a hot sunny day simply lulled them into their relaxed postures?
The next picture is one of my favorites if not the favorite photograph for me: A young man is leaning on a lamp-post staring intently into the distance on a street corner, perhaps this is 65th St, since the street receding into the backyard is a two-way street and there may be a bus stop on the corner although none is marked (& there is no bus stop sign). Again, there's a decorative wrought iron fence surrounding the multistory old multi family structure on the corner, and part of the fence is bashed - perhaps evidence of an accident wherein a car once jumped the curb & crashed into the fence? The young man leaning on the lamppost on the right is wearing a hoodie and jeans - nothing to distinguish him in particular, with dark curly hair and possibly a mustache (although it's hard to tell as his shoulder obscures the lower part of his face, and there are also strong shadows obscuring the right side of his face). Is he looking down the street for a bus? Is he just hanging out? Is he waiting for someone? A quarter of the way down the block down the two-way street that recedes into the distance, two possibly older people are gathered around an entrance stoop, chatting, one of them seated as typical on the stoop - one of them with a Collie on a leash. Neighbors talking on the street is typical of Brooklyn, or was typical of Brooklyn in those days - who knows if that neighborly behavior still persists today in the era of smart phones and instant messaging and so forth. Is the neighborhood congeniality supposed to contrast with the disorder of the dented fence, and even with the intensity of the young man hanging out at the lamp post? We really do not know what he is thinking or what he may be up to - perhaps nothing special or dangerous, but we do know that the man with the Collie chatting with the neighbor sitting on his stoop, represent order/community/neighborhood.
The next photograph is an obvious yet graphically poignant representation of urban despair in the era of the 80s in Brooklyn. A handball court in an empty school playground on a sunny day is almost completely covered in graffiti, and the door in the tall cyclone fence surrounding the playground is at a crazy angle, the fence partially coming down. Maybe the door is no longer operable. Beyond the sprawling playground a neat well-taken care of row houses are visible - thus, urban decay/disorder extends its grimy hands into every corner of Brooklyn, as the handball court is devastated with meaningless layers of graffiti. Incidentally, I'm not opposed to street art, including what some might consider graffiti. However, layers of tags with no organization or intent other than to record tag after tag, isn't to me at least an art work, or even a collective art work. Maybe I am a fuddy-duddy but random graffiti many times isn't art. When there's years of accumulated layers of random graffiti on a surface, as there is on the handball court wall in this photo, it isn't art - it's wall-paper like in its effect. Is it exciting? I don't think so, the "wildness" in this case goes too far - the only thing that's conveyed is that kids here found a convenient empty space to tag or draw super large tags, which may be meaningful to their buddies, but to most viewers, seem chaotic and meaningless. Interestingly, there's also a large weeping willow tree behind the handball court - is the abandonment or decay of the school yard being commented on by the drooping tree branches?
One photo in the book is different in that it does not include random/disorderly/decaying elements - that of the neatly dressed man seemingly considering his next move at a bocce court, with an (again organized) game of soft ball unfolding behind him at a park ball field, with one of the distant towers of the VZ bridge looming up behind a even more distant stand of tall trees. This scene is evidently one of a park in Bay Ridge, although the bridge is visible from other more distant areas of Bklyn. The bocce court is immaculate and the ball field is also clean and well taken care of. Significantly, a parks dept black plastic bag lined mobile garbage can with a broom stuck in it, is in a corner of the photo nearby the ball field - evidence that this park at least is well taken care of. This seems to be an utterly peaceful, bucolic scene - the hoped for harmony and tranquility of playing ball games according to the rules.
A photograph of a man putting up some dark shingle siding - wearing a cloth bucket hat with a "chaotic" print. Actually the print is of a decoupage like image of a collage of old-time newsprint - I suppose it might be considered amusing or self-deprecating something someone might wear on a sunny day, although there's no sun in evidence in the shadow-less photo - perhaps it was twilight by the time the picture was taken and that might explain the look of exhaustion on the man's face. A few shingles rest on a ladder nearby, and he holds a hammer in his right hand. A wooden fence is to the right - but the wooden picket style fence is almost as tall as the man; beyond the fence the gnarled trunk of a tree is visible. Obviously, the purpose of the fence is to obtain some privacy. Prior to Brooklyn becoming chaotic, it was possible to not have such emphatically private solid fences between yards. In those days, nobody minded if one neighbor could see through a fence, or even if there were no actual fences between yards - there was a fun element to scampering around in the alternative backyard space linking houses. I suppose by the time the 80s rolled around, this was no longer possible/safe or what home-owners wanted. Even if you had a tiny back yard, you had to set up a tall fence forget about any neighborliness and so forth. Perhaps the siding in this photo, along with the fence, symbolize the S Brooklyn home-owner's wish to secure his bit of property from the random chaos of the street.
The next photo shows a row of newer row houses with yet another row house being constructed in the left foreground, the construction site has ripped up the sidewalk, there is debris scattered about, and fencing blocks the construction site sidewalk - a sign, invisible to the viewer, is hanging from a sidewalk tree undoubtedly advising pedestrians to cross the street to get to the unobstructed sidewalk. Is this medium size tree, older than the brand new trees further down the block in front of the new row houses, a tree which has other gashes in addition to having the plywood sign hanging from it,and sitting in a pile of construction debris including bricks, at the center of the frame, supposed to represent suffering nature, surrounded by new construction, a tree from the older generations of now vanished structures, that is still just barely holding on? Will this tree survive the upheaval of the new construction on the block - considering how it's being treated by the builder? Who knows?
The next photo again features a tree at the center - a dark silhouette of a tree in front of a row of houses with a flock of birds - possibly pigeons, taking flight. This is an immaculate row of houses, windows with screens and storm windows - actually possibly newer row houses. Are those birds setting off from
The photographs as usual are excellent - from the standpoint of composition and contrast, and technical skill as well as printing (how nostalgic that sounds now in the era of digital photography). I remember Tri-X film, D76 developing agent, and Ilford paper. I remember this very well, because back in the day my family in Brooklyn were all into photography, including developing and printing. It was a mania, I would say, which unfortunately, for me at least, receded into a former hobby or pastime as the demands of grownup life crowded out creative pursuits that had once interested me, or absorbed my spare time. I suppose this must happen to many people once they grow up .. or think they are entering grown up life. Paradoxically, I was essentially through with photography as an avocation by the time Roma was starting out in it - age 17. Interestingly, Roma made a career out of photography - although he went to work at 17 and had scant formal training in photography, he kept at it and eventually became a successful photographer including winning teaching appointments at various prestigious universities. Not too shabby for a kid from Brooklyn - and it just goes to show you that sometimes, long years in school do not translate into a life-long career whereas a satisfying life-long career can sometimes simply materialize out of an avocation, if one sticks with it long enough.
I really loved the photographs in this book because they examine the seamier, perhaps more mysterious side of the Brooklyn streetscape (what I presume is mostly the S Brooklyn streetscape) - they are filled with ambiguity and open to many different interpretations. Shapeless junk or debris in an empty lot - what was it originally, how had it ended up there, why is the lot empty, what about the walls of the adjoining houses - which still may retain some traces of the missing building that once occupied the empty lot. Or is it an empty lot at all - is it rather a very messy, decidedly un-gentrified yard, one that someone can't be bothered to prettify with a nice lawn and plantings? The idea of debris of all sorts - abandoned fixtures, and all sorts of junk - of course it's fascinating the way all old junk is fascinating. Many times, the photographs contrast zones of disorder - a fence slightly askew, an empty lot or yard, with (dull?) orderly zones of neat, yet perhaps boring row houses. It's clear that the "star" of these photos is the contrast and of course the devastated lot.
The yards with scrawny patches of crab grass and various random/haphazard backyard furnishings - aluminum chairs, bbqs, picnic tables, mass produced concrete lawn sculptures, half-dead potted plants, and so forth - are in a way wonderful expressions of the home-owners idiosyncratic individuality, but the photographs aren't simply praising independence or "wildness" - they are also every time reminding the viewer that things are not always what they seem. The tiny backyard patches of earth, their messiness, despite the messiness aren't they really an oasis for a family? Families trying to keep the yard up as best they can, but the yard is overrun with evidence of family life - many times there are clotheslines with clothes hanging in the small yards, despite the yards also having to double as outdoor dining areas. Many of the assemblages of either found/discarded items that have somehow found their way into yards, aren't they forms of quixotic self-expression similar to the famous ready-made art works of the Dadaists? Or are they simply evidence of materialistic entropy - of belongings overflowing into yards and becoming randomly associated, not a deliberate arrangement of objects.
An example of deliberate street scape art though, is definitely in evidence in the photograph of the entrance way to a basement apartment, whose occupant has decorated with numerous religious symbols/slogans. Incongruously, a discarded sofa occupies much of the foreground of the photograph, the even/exact/symmetrical pattern of its brocade upholstery contrasting with the folksy painted religious symbols surrounding it.
Another photograph of a home that is carefully completely sheathed in asphalt shingles/siding - seemingly without one shingle out of place - contains a large tree branch broken off a sidewalk tree and falling into the yard of the immaculate/orderly house - disorder impinging on order, including the decorative iron fence surrounding the house bent out of shape by the impact of the falling branch. It seems as if the fence has been there a long time - is the message the City has neglected block after block, lot after lot - and that's why there is so much disorder, garbage on the streets, and so forth?
Another photo is composed of a casually though smartly dressed girl (in shorts and top) in front of a yard which is surrounded by a 7 or 8 foot barbed wire topped cyclone fence. Graffiti covers the subway entrance (stairs to elevated train - possibly the Sea Beach line) and the sense is of "islands" of order (the girl and the store front she is standing next to, which also seems orderly) contrasting with disorder - which is why the homeowner felt he had to guard his home with barbed wire topped fence.
A couple of other photographs shows diligent homeowners tending their fig trees - like back in the Mediterranean "old country" - by carefully wrapping them up in blankets for the winter, or pruning them. The social order of the old world towns is at least partially invoked in the ritual of taking care of these precious trees, which are usually in tended, even if tiny, yards. Are the trees also metaphors for the orderly home-owners, wrapping themselves in tradition perhaps, as insulation against the social change and upheaval sweeping Brooklyn and the City beyond? The scene is even more full of pathos when the trees are set against the elevated tracks which daily bring commuters from the traditional communities to the chaos of Manhattan, and then back to a much slower rhythm of life in Brooklyn each evening. The subway or elevated that many need to live (jobs in the City - although of course not everyone works in the City, many work in the outer boroughs) is exactly what is what is undermining or devastating their traditional way of life, where it may have been enough to tend a fig tree, or play bocce, or enjoy a bbq dinner in a tiny hard-scrabble backyard. I'm not going to romanticize S. Brooklyn. I know the area in general well - although I grew up in another area (Midwood) it was close enough to Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Cropsey Avenue and so forth. The contradictions in the 80s in Brooklyn were what drove me out of the borough - although I understand why some people may cling to tradition. The areas had become enclaves and there were several frightening instances of crimes based on race which I remember well - territoriality had set in. I disliked this and never regretted leaving Brooklyn - although it's changed so much since then. Of course I wonder about Brooklyn and what it might be like to live there again (if I could ever find an apartment I could afford, which is unlikely, however). When I left Brooklyn, rents were cheap since there was so much crime and disorder, and fear was omnipresent. I also had had enough of broken down trains regularly leading to ridiculously long commutes home - I remember having to pack extensive range of snacks & reading material in my knapsack because of the possibility I would be stuck on train after train. That and tapes for my walkman - because of how long the commutes would take. The Manhattan bridge was deteriorating and I disliked the long slow portion of the subway ride over the bridge, which was visibly rusting and swaying. The bridge has since been rehabbed, but I ended up avoiding taking trains that traversed the bridge to avoid the ride - instead I would switch to the IRT and have to go through Lower Manhattan, although I could have had a more direct and shorter (distance-wise but not time-wise since the train would always only inch over the bridge) ride had I taken the train over the bridge. The disorder in the streets, the decay of the infrastructure - is it any wonder really that people might retreat into their idiosyncratic backyard "sanctums?"
The photographs in the book seem to highlight the contrast between order and disorder - which was especially evident in those days to anyone walking on any street. Orderly, well-taken care of houses covered in siding might sit next to a ragged front yard planted with bizarre looking plants or trees, disorder next to order.
A photograph of three small boys solemnly burning a piece of paper or cardboard on the sidewalk, with a tire set upon a rim as a sort of monument, with garbage and graffiti everywhere - are these kids supposed to symbolize the (orderly) future possibly one day burying the (disorderly) past, with the tire symbolizing the unending cycle of the passage of time?
Next, there's a photo of a kid who is evidently drunk after quaffing half of a 40 oz bottle of Olde English 800 malt liquor, having fallen asleep on an overpass over what appears to be the Prospect Expressway or perhaps an on ramp to the Belt, with his dog, a small black long-haired possibly a mutt, on a leash still attached to the prone unconscious adolescent's hand, possibly guarding the snoozing inebriated kid. Next, a photo of a couple of youths climbing the sort of random trees or giant weeds that always seemed to sprout around highways in Brooklyn - looking out at highway traffic below - were they pretending to be in the jungle, by venturing into one of the leftover patches of greenery around a highway?
It is interesting to try to decode the garbage in the street in these pictures - remnants of an earlier era, prior to Starbucks, cell phones, and so many other things we take for granted today. Almost like a entree into an urban archaeology of a rather distant era. Does anybody remember metal garbage cans - the era of metal garbage cans with their lids chained to them, which were not hidden in enclosures, the era before the plastic garbage cans? The era before recycling? Who can remember the clanging of metal garbage cans the days the garbage truck would come around to collect the garbage? That era ended long ago. Does anyone remember the era prior to putting garbage in large plastic garbage bags - the era when people who put trash into paper grocery bags, which would sometimes fall apart from the moisture of coffee grounds or other food waste? I remember those days- of my mother screaming to whoever had to bring the garbage out to the garbage can to hold the bag from beneath or put a piece of newspaper under it while bringing it out to the street. Sometimes the bag would break - that was like a nightmare since immaculateness was all for her (& her housewife friends, who probably vied with each other as to who kept a neater, cleaner, more plastic-wrapped home).
Another photograph features 4 kids hanging out near a car - evidently owned by one of them (or more likely the kid's dad's car since it's quite a boat, possibly a Caddy) - one of the teen couples draped over the car in a casual embrace of legs, the other hanging out seemingly listlessly on nearby garbage cans, with a boombox tightly held by the girl turned toward the girl. Just another afternoon hanging out in Brooklyn - who knows what the next phase of the afternoon would bring? Again, the sidewalk is neglected, is that supposed to be a commentary on the lounging kids? Who knows? Behind the kids, across the street, one the left, a house under renovation, alongside a monotonous row of garages with dark side-opening doors (not the more modern overhead doors) - every surface has graffiti, to lesser or greater extents. Evidence of neglect or owners who have just given up on trying to keep their property free of graffiti? The car the kids have is immaculate - once again, order vs. disorder. But are the lives of the kids spiraling into a kind of hopelessness or has the torpor of a hot sunny day simply lulled them into their relaxed postures?
The next picture is one of my favorites if not the favorite photograph for me: A young man is leaning on a lamp-post staring intently into the distance on a street corner, perhaps this is 65th St, since the street receding into the backyard is a two-way street and there may be a bus stop on the corner although none is marked (& there is no bus stop sign). Again, there's a decorative wrought iron fence surrounding the multistory old multi family structure on the corner, and part of the fence is bashed - perhaps evidence of an accident wherein a car once jumped the curb & crashed into the fence? The young man leaning on the lamppost on the right is wearing a hoodie and jeans - nothing to distinguish him in particular, with dark curly hair and possibly a mustache (although it's hard to tell as his shoulder obscures the lower part of his face, and there are also strong shadows obscuring the right side of his face). Is he looking down the street for a bus? Is he just hanging out? Is he waiting for someone? A quarter of the way down the block down the two-way street that recedes into the distance, two possibly older people are gathered around an entrance stoop, chatting, one of them seated as typical on the stoop - one of them with a Collie on a leash. Neighbors talking on the street is typical of Brooklyn, or was typical of Brooklyn in those days - who knows if that neighborly behavior still persists today in the era of smart phones and instant messaging and so forth. Is the neighborhood congeniality supposed to contrast with the disorder of the dented fence, and even with the intensity of the young man hanging out at the lamp post? We really do not know what he is thinking or what he may be up to - perhaps nothing special or dangerous, but we do know that the man with the Collie chatting with the neighbor sitting on his stoop, represent order/community/neighborhood.
The next photograph is an obvious yet graphically poignant representation of urban despair in the era of the 80s in Brooklyn. A handball court in an empty school playground on a sunny day is almost completely covered in graffiti, and the door in the tall cyclone fence surrounding the playground is at a crazy angle, the fence partially coming down. Maybe the door is no longer operable. Beyond the sprawling playground a neat well-taken care of row houses are visible - thus, urban decay/disorder extends its grimy hands into every corner of Brooklyn, as the handball court is devastated with meaningless layers of graffiti. Incidentally, I'm not opposed to street art, including what some might consider graffiti. However, layers of tags with no organization or intent other than to record tag after tag, isn't to me at least an art work, or even a collective art work. Maybe I am a fuddy-duddy but random graffiti many times isn't art. When there's years of accumulated layers of random graffiti on a surface, as there is on the handball court wall in this photo, it isn't art - it's wall-paper like in its effect. Is it exciting? I don't think so, the "wildness" in this case goes too far - the only thing that's conveyed is that kids here found a convenient empty space to tag or draw super large tags, which may be meaningful to their buddies, but to most viewers, seem chaotic and meaningless. Interestingly, there's also a large weeping willow tree behind the handball court - is the abandonment or decay of the school yard being commented on by the drooping tree branches?
One photo in the book is different in that it does not include random/disorderly/decaying elements - that of the neatly dressed man seemingly considering his next move at a bocce court, with an (again organized) game of soft ball unfolding behind him at a park ball field, with one of the distant towers of the VZ bridge looming up behind a even more distant stand of tall trees. This scene is evidently one of a park in Bay Ridge, although the bridge is visible from other more distant areas of Bklyn. The bocce court is immaculate and the ball field is also clean and well taken care of. Significantly, a parks dept black plastic bag lined mobile garbage can with a broom stuck in it, is in a corner of the photo nearby the ball field - evidence that this park at least is well taken care of. This seems to be an utterly peaceful, bucolic scene - the hoped for harmony and tranquility of playing ball games according to the rules.
A photograph of a man putting up some dark shingle siding - wearing a cloth bucket hat with a "chaotic" print. Actually the print is of a decoupage like image of a collage of old-time newsprint - I suppose it might be considered amusing or self-deprecating something someone might wear on a sunny day, although there's no sun in evidence in the shadow-less photo - perhaps it was twilight by the time the picture was taken and that might explain the look of exhaustion on the man's face. A few shingles rest on a ladder nearby, and he holds a hammer in his right hand. A wooden fence is to the right - but the wooden picket style fence is almost as tall as the man; beyond the fence the gnarled trunk of a tree is visible. Obviously, the purpose of the fence is to obtain some privacy. Prior to Brooklyn becoming chaotic, it was possible to not have such emphatically private solid fences between yards. In those days, nobody minded if one neighbor could see through a fence, or even if there were no actual fences between yards - there was a fun element to scampering around in the alternative backyard space linking houses. I suppose by the time the 80s rolled around, this was no longer possible/safe or what home-owners wanted. Even if you had a tiny back yard, you had to set up a tall fence forget about any neighborliness and so forth. Perhaps the siding in this photo, along with the fence, symbolize the S Brooklyn home-owner's wish to secure his bit of property from the random chaos of the street.
The next photo shows a row of newer row houses with yet another row house being constructed in the left foreground, the construction site has ripped up the sidewalk, there is debris scattered about, and fencing blocks the construction site sidewalk - a sign, invisible to the viewer, is hanging from a sidewalk tree undoubtedly advising pedestrians to cross the street to get to the unobstructed sidewalk. Is this medium size tree, older than the brand new trees further down the block in front of the new row houses, a tree which has other gashes in addition to having the plywood sign hanging from it,and sitting in a pile of construction debris including bricks, at the center of the frame, supposed to represent suffering nature, surrounded by new construction, a tree from the older generations of now vanished structures, that is still just barely holding on? Will this tree survive the upheaval of the new construction on the block - considering how it's being treated by the builder? Who knows?
The next photo again features a tree at the center - a dark silhouette of a tree in front of a row of houses with a flock of birds - possibly pigeons, taking flight. This is an immaculate row of houses, windows with screens and storm windows - actually possibly newer row houses. Are those birds setting off from
Read
June 30, 2012Looked like my neighborhood: rose bushes and wrapped-up fig trees.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews